Full Connection
by Xeptin Bamboo
Summary: [Yogscast/The Creatures/Team Crafted] Three territories that make up the mainland, each with it's own cast and own slew of problems. One facing a food shortage after connections were cut when they became an island. Another with the possibility of a nuclear and magical war. The last coming face-to-face with a technological death. Full summary inside
1. Ch1: Welcome to the Golden Lights

**This is a Yogscast/The Creatures and Friends/Team Crafted/Achievement Hunter crossover fic. Search people up if you don't know who's who.**

**_[A/N: This crossover fanfic I'll finish, I swear. This time I have all my worldbuilding headcanons laid out, and there are too many instances of foreshadowing in this chapter alone for me to just abandon it. Progress is going to be slow, though.]_**

Summary:

Three territories that make up the mainland, each with it's own cast and own slew of problems. One facing a food shortage after connections were cut when they became an island. Another with the possibility of a nuclear and magical war, not to mention the undertones of human testing at the main research facility. A small, minuscule piece of land without any connections to anyone else facing a threat that one small team can't handle. The last coming face-to-face with a technological death, the very platforms that use to entertain falling to the ground below.

Welcome to Minecraftia.

* * *

The bright lights of a Budder City, the Capitol of the Team Crafted Territory, shone into the night sky above and blocked out all of the stars, leaving the moon hanging alone in the sky. The _Zeus_ tower stood above the skyline, screen flashing between scene and scene until it focused on one - various angles of Sky and Deadlox, readying up and having small talk.

A crowd surrounded the screens, eagerly awaiting the competition to heat up. A few banners, ranging from simple words like "Go Deadlox" to "The King never loses" were raised above their heads and waving around in the faint wind. Lights were placed everywhere to highlight everything, from the small nooks and crannies in between the buildings to showing off the scenes etched into the columns. Budder was in everything, from the intricate designs on the walls to making up the statues of the founders.

The whole city had an air of high-life in it, even in the medium wealth areas where it wasn't so ornately decorated. The spiralling tower was visible from all parts of the city, whether you lived in an apartment or a in a luxurious condo, sitting in your balcony pool.

A countdown ticked down to the starting time, sending out a beep that echoed throughout the city.

_15 seconds remaining._

Just another ordinary day in the nicknamed, "Golden Lights City".

Entertainment central of Team Crafted Territory - no, probably all of Minecraftia.

Sky cracked his knuckles, looking at the new parkour course that was specially built by Bodil for another Sky vs Deadlox race. It looked quite challenging, but that wasn't what bothered him - a pool of water was below most, but not all, of the track. Sky was pretty sure what lay in the murky depths.

To be honest, he never really put much thought about where the squids came from in the first place.

His sunglasses let out a small _ping_ as the interface showed up, showing him his hunger, healthbar, his current toolbar (which was filled with nothing to prevent cheating), some white floating names above others who had the interface, and the recording status.

_0 seconds remaining. _

_**Begin**__._

Sky went first, launching himself feet forwards towards the first platform. His gauntlets and knee-pad lights began to flicker and finally stabilised to a constant glow as he sprinted across the floating mechanism, lights moving around erratically.

He dared not look back - seconds wasted that he could have been running the parkour course. _Breath in. Breath out. Jump, dive, run. Repeat. Don't look back. Don't look at the glaring lights. _

Sure, _everyone_ in the territory knew that the evil ones came from some kind of squid dimension, but how did a rip to a completely different dimension get cut into the fabric of space-time in the first place? No one here could have been able to, and even if they could, Sky could have easily picked them out from the ranks of squids that assaulted the territory every once in a while. That left the possibility of a traitor, but he didn't really want to believe that.

He could hear Deadlox's feet pounding against the platform. The timer was there in the corner of his eye, it's irritating red light counting down to the end of the record time. _Beat your score. Jump, dive, run. Repeat. Don't look down into the water. Don't look down at the squids._

The only people that could have did it were one of the neighbouring territories.

Sky let out a small puff before hopping onto the next block, a small trail of yellow light emanating from his gauntlets to show how he moved. This whole thing was being recorded for the whole city to watch on the screens, and one slip-up meant possible public humiliation.

Not the best for the king and founder of the territory.

He forced his breaths to become longer, to slow his heartbeat. _Jump, dive, run. Repeat. The island doesn't matter now. _

More like the people who could have done it must have come from a neighbouring territory, singular. The island fell into disrepair after connections were cut ages ago by the sand bridge falling into the ocean's depths (totally squids), not to mention rumours that every human died out, leaving vast amounts of horrifying creatures in it's wake. This led to some lame re-naming of the island from "Asgard" to "The Creature's Island" by the Council of the Territories (Sky, of course, wanted it to be named something cool like "Super Island 3,000,000 or something), and earning a big fat "do not enter" mark on new maps.

Not that anyone could get near in the first place, that island was always surrounded by whirlpools for some indiscernible reason.

Deadlox barely made the jump behind him, almost slipping off at the last second. They both knew that there was water to catch their fall (and a respawning system just in case they ended up as a blood splatter on the ground), but they also knew that there were big flocks of squids, tentacles ready to grab them.

It was a common fact that Sky was absolutely terrified of squids, even before the squid dimension opened, for some reason. He was barely able to keep himself together in a puddle of squids with three people, and it mostly ended up with him as a screaming mess.

With an army beside him though, it had gotten a bit better.

With a grunt, he threw himself at the wall and clenched his fists around a ladder rung, his legs dangling below him. He could almost feel the gaze of thousands of people at the back of his neck, and the nervousness almost made him miss the next rung. Having himself up and placing both of his legs on a solid surface, he turned, back faced to the wall, and started inching towards the end of the horizontally placed ladders. A few budder blocks were placed on the end and he stared at it, mouth almost watering. Yes. He _needed_ that. He tried not to think about the horrors that lay below him, but he snuck a glance at the heights and -

The next thing he knew he was falling and spinning and falling and tumbling and falling and his ponytail was slapping him right in the face and _oh __**Notch**__ the ground is coming up to say hi—_

* * *

_**Welcome to Yoglabs.**_

_A familiar voice. The bearded dude who showed him around the facility. __**Research is there. Testing is there. There are our employees. Don't go there**__, he says._

_**But what's in there?**__ He blinks slowly, his eyelids feeling heavy. He can barely do anything but stand, stand on the sand. Jump, dive, __**run**__. Breath in, breath out. You __**hit the water too hard**__. You __**drowned**__. You are __**dead**__. You are __**not**__. You are __**respawning**__._

_Screams can be heard, echoed throughout the walls and bouncing inside his head. Sound too loud. __**Lights too bright. Where are my sunglasses. **_

_The __**goateed**__ man only smiles as he disappears into a pile of sand. Sunk into the ocean. The Creature's Island, The Creatures Island, __**The Creatures,**__ Island, stands in front of him, the white walls of Yoglabs dissolving into the same grainy substance._

_The waves crashing against the land beckons him. Weren't you __**here**__? With the __**sly fox.**__ And the __**masked wolf**__. And the __**fedora guy**__. Minecraftia Daily, they called it, __**Minecraft Daily.**__ How many episodes?_

_Terrifying creatures, __**dislocated**__**jaws**__. Claws. __**Stitched**__ arms. No arms. The sharp tang of blood blossoming into a thousand __**red, brown, green, white**__, grey __**scarves**__ that flew up into the sky and became a squid, flying around as if swimming through a think liquid._

_He looked down. His skin was __**grey-blue**__. White. Black. __**Angry**__. Loving. __**Shifting**__. How many fingers did he have? _

_They appeared and disappeared each second, clueing him in on the dream-like nature of the environment. The language scrawled onto the air was garbled. Scrambled. Scrambling. __**Humans, scrambling.**_

_Welcome to __**Yoglabs**__. Welcome to __**The Creatures**__. Welcome. _

_**0 Seconds remaining.**_

_Oh shit, trippy dream again._

_What the hell is my brain on—_

_**Begin**__**.**_

* * *

Bright lights leaked through his eyelids, a small yawn coming to his lips as he dimly realised he was in the city's hospital. For like the five thousandth time this week. He arched his back as he squirmed out of the covers and sat up, the dream slowly being pushed back to the edge of his memory. _Shit, that was way more trippy than normal._

White, cold, scratchy and sterile. It was probably the second most uncomfortable thing for him, the first being the squids.

Beeps interrupted the silence every few seconds. As if he couldn't figure out for himself that he was still breathing, his heart still beating. He looked out the familiar window out at the city - _his_ city - with small budder ornaments and carvings littered around the ledges and parkour areas. The screen displayed on the _Zeus_, the tallest tower, was currently cycling through the news. Economy, who was the best at parkour (naturally, him), their number 1 company that traded with them for technology possibly being evil, sports, the same old thing.

The click of a door handle turning interrupted him from his thoughts as he squinted his eyes at the headline, his dream immediately clicking back into his brain. What was in the forbidden corridor? _"Yoglabs preforming illegal experiments? Find out today at—"_

"Respawn successful?"

He yawned again and pulled some of the tubes monitoring his health off of him, causing the machine to flatline with an annoying beep. "Naturally. When hasn't it worked? Besides, I'm here right now, am I?"

Deadlox rolled his eyes, brushing the hair from his ears so his ultra high tech headphones or whatever they were weren't covered with his hair. What was covered with his hair, AKA _half of his face_, remained the same.

Sometimes Sky wondered if a demonic eye or maybe a robotic one was down there or something, but let's be honest here, that's not exactly at the top of his mind.

"It's new technology, it might bring you back with like," he motioned towards his side, "Tentacles growing out of your back. Or wings."

"First of all, the wings would be cool, and second of all," he made an over-the-top gagging sound and gripped at his neck, "Yuck."

Sky did a fake spasm in his bed, flopping around like a dead fish. It was surprisingly accurate, even as his hair accidentally caught on the bed and he was pulled to an abrupt and painful stop.

The other rolled his eyes, smiling, and threw him a bundle of clothes. "Come on zombie, we need to show the public that you're still alive after yesterday's fiasco."

"You think they'd realise that dying isn't a big problem anymore?"

"Doubt it." he positioned his headphones so that they hung loosely off of his head, allowing him to hear a marginal amount better, and looked at Sky with a 'you know how they are' look. "Yes, of _course_ it's perfectly fine seeing your beloved _king_," he stretched out the 'king' part and the whole sentence was laced with various amounts of sarcasm, "Knocked out as he hit the water and _drown_ in a big pile of squid. You know, it's only _slightly_ traumatising."

Sky grinned and slipped his normal armour on top of the hospital shirt (which was practically his own from his various visits), careful not to cut any wires or tubing that connected him to the mainframe, or supplied the awesome lights. Time to change the subject. "Anyway, Yoglabs being evil?", he dropped his voice a bit as he looped his amulet around his neck, "Why the hell did no one tell me this?"

Deadlox pointed to a tower of unfinished paperwork that was moved to the hospital from his office. One piece of paper fluttered down onto the white tiles, reminding him that yup, he didn't complete any of his work. Hooray, procrastinating. "Somewhere in there."

Sky groaned in reply, flopping down onto the bed and pulling the covers over his head. "You know what? I don't feel so good. Maybe some horns will grow out of my head. Or a tail."

He let a mock groan of pain and twisted his face, but Deadlox wasn't laughing like normal. "Sky, you know what this means? About Yoglabs, not the whole fake demon mode thing."

A cloud passed over the sun, putting the room into an eerie light as the LED lights flickered on, shining right through the covers. "Oh Notch, get me my sunglasses. This light's _killing me_—"

"Sky, if Yoglabs turns out bad, the Council will force it to shut down and you to cut off trade routes. We'll end up like the island.", his voice was serious now instead of his playful banter, dropping in a few pitches to turn into a curt growl.

He paused, putting a hand over his strangely sensitive eyes. Notch, the light was so unforgiving in the hospital, he hated it. "What do you mean, 'like the island'? I don't suppose we'll suddenly turn into half-human half-whatever hybrids."

"There aren't any respawns for the cities themselves, Sky. Parkouring platforms will fall from the sky, with who _knows_ how many casualties. Not including the death from the standard protests, or people starving out. No replacement tech, no lights, no electricity, energy source will eventually fail. We'll be dead in the squid-infested water." he circled the room, tapping appliances with his finger as he went, mouthing 'dead' to all of them, "We don't have enough research and tech to keep this place running and alive."

A look of realisation and complete horror dawned onto the Budder King's face, freezing him in his tracks just as he was going to stand up and walk out.

The whole city was heading towards a technological death.


	2. Ch2: Toxic Island

Pulling back a spider-string bowstring, he felt it tighten up around his grip around the notched arrow. The oak bow creaked from the strain put ontoit, it being not exactly the best made in the whole world, and his ears resonated with a '_twang_' as the arrow was sent flying, spinning through the leaves and the air towards it's target.

And of course, thanks to his shoddy aiming skills, promptly missed it's target and instead lodged itself into a nearby tree with an audible thunk.

"What the _fuck_, Chilled?" Ze recoiled in surprise, the items in his hands dropping down in front of him as he drew back both of his arms. The dirt was immediately sucked into Ze's inventory as he narrowed his eyes and opened it, a floating blue screen displayed from his almost unnoticeable headphones.

Chilled instead chuckled and adjusted his microphone so it would be closer to his mouth. If it were any closer, Ze would have heard his heavy panting and his laughter giving the whole prank away, or maybe he might have interpreted it as Chilled getting some weird thoughts about his body and his heartbeat acting accordingly.

Dangling his legs into the air and clutching the branch with both of his hands, he dropped down onto the patch of soil in the shade.

Naturally, that force dropped a huge pile of leaves right onto his face.

Chilled spat out a leaf, gagging and screaming, flapping around his arms to shake off the remaining leaves.

"F-Fuck!" First he the prank didn't work out as planned, and now he was the subject to laughter. Ze was over there, the arrow mere meters (okay, maybe meters was a bit away) from his body, and wiping the tears from his eyes as his breath got shallower from laughing.

Ze's laughter finally subsided to a small chuckle he couldn't hold in every once on a while, and he plucked a leaf from Chilled's mop of hair, dodging stray flails from his arm, and dropped it a bit away.

"Wow Chilled, at least think of the consequences before trying to take my eye out." he said with a smile, watching the other calm down and try to straighten up his white wool sweater and his oversized scarf in an attempt to regain his composure. The strange stitches that covered his body were visible for a brief second before he rolled down his loose sleeves again, a reminder of his Sackboy (or 'Cloth Colossal', as they were called before the Toxic) heritage.

To everyone, Chilled looked like a completely normal human being (minus the stitches that ran from one side of his jaw to the other, splitting his mouth and nose-eyes area, and stitches that separated both of his arms into two parts). Upon closer examination though, it was quite obvious that he was a hybrid - a human that wasn't fully, well, human.

Although his body was certainly a human, or multiple humans from the different skin tones that made up his skin underneath the cloth, his birth certainly was not a normal one.

It was honestly too bad he didn't really like to talk about his parents. I mean, _really_ awkward talking about them when you're practically wearing their cloth corpses on your body right at this moment.

His eyes, although sometimes lit up from excitement, were glazed over. He was certainly alive, but from the time Ze had been sneaking out of The Creature Treehouse to meet up with him, his body somehow wasn't. A clear sign that he wasn't human.

That, and the fact that every, or at least most (since Gassy was still around) non-hybrid human got killed by the Toxic.

More specifically, the gas that managed to poison and kill anyone and everyone but them. The half-humans. The unfavourables.

"I wasn't going to take your eye out, don't be so dra-_ma_-tic!" he threw up both of his hands, "Maybe it would have hit your shoulder or something."

Ze rolled his eyes, fingers brushing over the badly-created arrow (Chilled, of course, was terrible at crafting as he was with common sense) to check if he could pull it out. Despite the aim, the arrow was lodged in surprisingly deep.

A small ping opened up the chatbar, a small, almost-transparent screen that was displayed in front of him. The grey screen floated right in front of Chilled, who let out a big puff and went through it to catch his friend's attention.

"Who's messaging you now, buddy...?" he was now stationed behind Ze, peering above his shoulder easily from the height difference, "Hope it's not Smarty or someone. Abyss Summoner should really learn when to lay his hands off of your butt."

Ze could hear him mumbling something about how 'Ze's butt is mine', but didn't bother to speak up about how much that implied, instead turning his attention to the white, pixelated words in front of him. They slowly became less blurry as the pair of headphones collected solar energy, providing more power.

_**UberHaxorNova:**__ yooooo_

_**UberHaxorNova:**__ actually, maybe I don't want to complete the profane part of it_

Of course, Nova again. It was always like this, him checking up on where he went. If it wasn't all of the guys sending messages at the same time.

_**SSoHPKC: **__It's perfectly fine to swear in front of your friends, Nova. In the matter of fact, I do recall hearing you use some choice words on all of us just yesterday. _

_**SlyFoxHound:**__ specially me _

_**SlyFoxHound:**__ 3_

Look, there they were right now. Ze sighed and ignored Chilled's increasingly high-pitched questions.

_**UberHaxorNova:**__ whatever _

_**UberHaxorNova:**__ look where the hell are you _

_**UberHaxorNova:**__ we need to assistance ok _

_**UberHaxorNova:**__ I really don't care how much you're enjoying nature rn just get your smooth ass outta the forest and into the _

_**UberHaxorNova:**__ other forest? are jungles called forests or are they just jungles_

They were also extremely gullible in believing the lie that he always went out to enjoy nature. For weeks at a time.

Seamus did seem a bit suspicious, but he already had his hands full in trying to keep everyone from killing each other.

Making typing motions in the air, he quickly sent a message to the guys.

_**ZeRoyalViking:**__ I'll be there don't worry._

Even though society completely fell into ruin, leaving the hybrids out to wander in the untamed wild and the ruins eaten away by the Toxic, they still had their technology. It was surprisingly waterproof and anything-proof, and turned out very useful once it was discovered that it didn't run on the City power (which was now long-gone), and instead only relied on itself and other headphones.

With a chatbar (nicknames carried over from pre-Toxic to post-Toxic world), a screen displaying your inventory, your health and hunger, a way to talk to your survival group even when chunks away, and running on solar power, it was a must-have.

The only downside that it was a fairly old model. Who knew how they were on the mainland? Of course, if the sand bridge didn't suddenly dissolve into the ocean, this wouldn't have happened. The models over there seemed pretty cool, too. There were watches that could make you fly or make items appear from thin air, or things implanted into your eye so tha-

"ZE?! Can you even hear me, buddy?"

The shout deafened him, leaving him momentarily confused. "What?"

"Just made sure you didn't go on a mental Nether adventure again."

Along with the sneak-outs to Chilled, Gassy, Diction, and the rest of the bunch, he also went on frequent trips to the Nether. Which baffled everyone as he came back time and time again, without a single singed hair or a piece of burnt cloth.

What he didn't tell them was that sometimes he saw more people not from the Island, playing games that involved trapping Nether mobs in cages and calling it a 'no petting' zoo. Two men, a person clad in a creeper suit and another who had a strange fascination with roses, were trying to box in a Ghast or two for some unknown reason.

He did NOT want to associate with them at all.

Coming back was fai-

"Ze, you're honestly getting cross-eyed." Chilled gave a concerned look, cupping his bearded chin with his hand, "Do you need medical assistance?"

Ze liked how the other had a slight lisp, unnoticeable if you weren't looking for it. It might be because his top row of teeth and bottom row of teeth were from completely separate bodies, but you just don't know.

"N-nah. I just need to head back."

"Aw man, it's only noon..." he dragged out the noon, flopping onto Ze's back.

"Chilled."

"Oh, fine."

* * *

Ze panted as he flew through the branches, hands and feet in a perfect rhythm as he gripped and launched himself at the next tree, murky green eyes only focused on what was in front of him and what he should do to get there.

A compass pointed in the direction of 'home', or his last slept-in bed, and a small map was up. Oh, what a great time to have waypoints. Too bad, since this was pretty much the model right before the one that actually added waypoints.

His inventory screen floated to his right, his projected body in the little screen running along and jumping, mirroring his actions exactly. His battleaxe was still strapped to his back by some leather, ornate carvings untouched by the dirt and grime of the wild world.

Ze went through the coordinates in his mind, making a fast route in his head. In one swift movement, he felt the branch beneath him turn into air as he leapt from one side of a ravine to the other, eyes not daring to look at the sheer drop that ravines were famous for, and the loot that was always embedded within it's walls.

He felt his hands grip something that wasn't quite wood and almost faltered, but swung himself around anyway. Cursing under his breath, he sat down and took a breather, eyeing it suspiciously.

A bit of dark green, still-damp moss covered it, but he scraped it away with his fingernails (plopping the refreshingly cool moss on his head), and examined it closely.

His head slowly looked up.

Old building. Metal. Strange, this area of the island was always for more rural living, like farming and stuff. Stealing old potatoes and melons (along with slaughtering the remaining animals) was always a treat whenever they found a farm.

Then it clicked.

Literally.

First it clicked in his mind, sending his whole body into a panic. Gassy described these all the time, the places where he got his signature gas mask and his throat/voice-mod, telling stories of a pre-Toxic world where he was another faceless government goon. Metal, in places you'd never imagine - a government building. He'd pause whenever they asked him about what was in the buildings, of course. Look away and pretend the question was never asked.

In front of Ze was a broken fence, already starting to be reclaimed by the jungle. A building, completely rectangle and half-hidden by the overgrowth stood not far into the area. No sense in looking for bodies here - the jungle always found some way of taking it back.

The metal 'tree' clicked second. Colourful birds suddenly sprang to life, a flock chirping angrily as leaves began to fall in a blinding swirl.

He barely managed to make it out as the metal beam fell, the glass above shattering as it hit the floor. He landed in the dirt, face-first, and skidding to a halt with his feet only a centimetre away from the landing point. Ze squeezed his eyes shut as the world slowly quieted down, returning to the normal sounds of nature.

Cautiously opening his eye and coughing out debris, he saw a few forms on top of the beam with odd protrusions out of them. Oh god, it can't be Nova, could it? That wouldn't look good on the tombstone; UberHaxorNova was doomed to fall. UberHaxorNova, speared on metal.

No respawns, unfortunately. It took only 15 seconds for you to begin, and only a fraction of that for you to meet an untimely end.

As his vision cleared and he rubbed the dirt out of his eyes, the others were stirring, too.

"Ten out of ten job, Nova."

Well, Seamus was alive for sure.

"Hey! Ze!" Nova spoke up, bursting out of a bush as if a giant metal pillar didn't send them all crashing down, "Check it out!"

He lifted up the protrusion, which turned out to be an arm.

How morbid.

"No, no! _This!_"

The 'skin' proceeded to peel off, much to Ze's disgust, to reveal pistons and generally mechanical stuff that was not flesh underneath. Wires ran throughout the entire length and dangled out of the detached arm, tangled in the air. Dim lights made it glow an eerie blue, the remaining skin lighting up before it too fell off. It took a few seconds for Ze to comprehend what he was seeing. Didn't it make a tiny bit of sense now? Gassy always faltering when he spoke about robots and having a strange knowledge of robotics? The odd rumors of people with metal arms and metal hearts, only for the accusers to be nowhere to be found the very next day.

They didn't find just another ordinary government base.

They found the android production line.


	3. Ch3: StarT Today

A log landed in the roaring fire, sending a spray of ashes and sparks up into the night sky. Thunder rolled in the distance, a dark cloud over the small speck that was the mainland, lightning setting the night ablaze.

A small makeshift oven was set above the flame, metal bars holding up a cracked pot and a half-cooked porkchop. The lid on the pot was missing, steam floating into the sky and boiling water haphazardly splashed out onto the clearing and managed to boil a trail of ants alive.

They had managed to rip apart the android arm that they found during the day, but thanks to Nova it took a while after they had somehow lost it in the dense jungle. They found it carried by a pack of ocelots, the one that looked like the leader with a red gash on his forehead and spaced-out look in it's eyes, and they put up quite a fight for a pack of glorified housecats. By the time they reached the ruined government building, the sun had already started to make it's descent into the earth.

Better to start later than to be eaten alive by mobs.

Ze shuffled awkwardly in the funny-shaped leaves, some shredding under his feet. It had been quiet for a long while, especially after they found out that the key component to making the arm work was damaged beyond repair. To be more specific, none of them could fix it and none of them were willing to learn on the spot.

So, of course, Nova threw it over a cliff in rage into a churning river.

The fox hybrid glared at Nova, ears twitching angrily, blaming him for their predicament. To be honest, having some quality friendship time in a clearing right next to a huge discovery didn't sound like the best thing that could happen, but it could have been worse.

Nova avoided Sly's gaze, instead suddenly becoming interesting in picking off a scab on his knee. Ze had no idea where or how he got it, as he never really followed his friend's news.

"Maybe you can use that fire to cauterise that," SlyFox rolled his eyes as he said that, the fact that the shark hybrid was ignoring him completely obvious to the group, "Oh wait, the piston that would have been perfect for a hot poker is missing." Sly spat out the last word, flashing his pointed teeth.

Nova just grumbled under his breath, words like "fuck you, Sly" and "may Notch strike down your dick with his holy shaft of lightning" raised above the rest.

Even though it wasn't appropriate for the mood, Ze felt laughter build up in his chest and had to bite his lip to stop it. Unfortunately, his teeth also pierced his lip and started bleeding

Without making a sound, he spat out a bit of blood, hating the tang of iron that stuck in his mouth. He wasn't really sure why every single time he smelled or tasted blood, bile would rise into his throat and he felt like he would vomit, but what he did know that it was a thing that happened.

Nova had obviously seen him in the dimming light of the campfire, turning his head around from Sly to look at the distracted Viking. "Hey, uh," he paused, going through possible sentences in his head, instead choosing the easiest one, "You alright?"

"Mhmm."

Silence lingered in the clearing, faint groans of zombies echoing through the jungle. Thank god they picked a relatively safe area which they could bolt from if danger was to appear, otherwise they'd be screwed.

Nova had given up trying to talk to Ze and instead returned to ignoring Sly slipping in a few insults now and then, and sometimes even throwing in a mock punch. Nova retaliated by biting on his hand once Sly tried to 'punch' him again, shark teeth cutting in easily.

"Hey, _HEY_!" Sly used his left had to pry Nova off, waving his right around wildly. His voice turned high-pitched as he inspected his hand with a pouty-face, narrowed eyes staring at Nova. "Asshole."

"Excuse me? _Who_ is the one that's _punching_ the other," he dragged out every other word, "And blaming them for a simple _mistake_?"

Sly snorted before opening his mouth for a retort before Seamus threw a rock at both of them, hitting Nova squarely in the nose.

"Can you ladies _please_ stop fighting over there? Some of us," Seamus motioned between himself and Ze, "Are trying to listen to the horrifying sounds of the mobs that are no doubt closing in on us right now."

Sly ignored Seamus' dry remark, instead faking a grimace and clutching his hand. "Ooh, I can feel an infection coming on already. We might even need to chop it off!" he dramatically shoved it in front of Nova, who was fuming and looked like he might explode at any minute, "But, as I said before, that piece that could have been used for a cauterising tool is gone!"

"Shut the fuck _UP_, Sly." he muttered threateningly. Sly just giggled again and toppled backwards, feet in the air.

Even Seamus mustered a smile, looking at both of them like a parent would at two squabbling children. His smile froze, though, and eyes widened as he heard the sounds of leaves brushing against each other, and twigs snapping underneath some kind of force.

Nova must have heard, too, because he also stopped what he was doing. Cautiously, he lifted up his iron sword and gripped it in his right hand, his eyes staring at the source of the sound.

Sly was still oblivious and was giggling until Nova kicked him in the side.

Seamus slowly got up, face returning to a neutral position. The shuffling sounds got louder, mixed in with a few moans and groans of an undead creature. They all stood, frozen in the spot, one hand on whatever weapon they managed to bring (except for Sly, who held onto the robotic arm like a lifeline), and waited for the inevitable to come.

The moans stopped as fast as they had appeared.

Sly breathed a sigh of relief.

Which was cut off after a sickly green hand, skin was pulled taut over the bones, holes in flesh like Swiss fucking cheese, grabbed him by the neck and started strangling him.

Seamus was the first to react, bringing down his sword on top of the approximate location of the zombie's head. Instead it sunk into it's shoulder, it making garbled noises with it's mangled throat. It loosened it's grip for just a second.

Sly spun around and kicked it with his legs, launching himself in the opposite direction of the undead monster.

The zombie was in full view now. One of it's arms was dangling by a think strand of muscle, still moving somehow even on it's precarious perch. It had bumps all over it, sticking out awkwardly form it's skin that hung too tightly on it's bones, and a few strands of hair on it's head that may have suggested it once may have been a female. It's throat was a complete mess like it was scratched at during the last few moments of it's life, it's neck barely even able to support it's brainless head. Her jaw was hanging down, as if unable to close, and the rows of rotten teeth were visible.

Some bumps were open and popped while some were pulsing, a sickly yellow fluid dripping out and spreading all over it's tinted green skin. It dampened the tattered cloth that used to be clothes that were draped across her body.

Victim of the Toxic.

It had one of it's legs bent at an odd angle and it shambled towards them all, going painfully slow as it dragged the probably broken leg behind them.

Look where the quarantine got them. It didn't work. Only hybrids were immune for some reason that only Notch knew and everyone else needed some other source of survival.

Nova sidestepped and lunged out, sword in front of him, and took out one of it's arms, it landing a bit away. It let out a half-gurgle half-scream as it wobbled towards Sly, the closest one, who nimbly jumped on top of it's shoulders and into a tree.

It seemed to be enraged, or at least as enraged as a rotting corpse could be, and swung wildly. Ze held his battleaxe defensively, and as the loose hand scratched at him, he deflected the strikes off using his axe.

With one swoop, he brought down the axe on top of it's head with a disgusting, wet-sounding noise. It cut through the skull and the already-soft flesh, revealing a few maggots that had already made their home in the dead body (and some chopped up maggots from the strike) and went through until the crotch, effectively slicing it into two.

Both sides flopped down.

Ze didn't know whether to roll his eyes or wonder how he didn't scream or vomit while fighting that.

The body was leaking the Toxic everywhere, but no one _there_ had to worry about the sickness spreading to them. However, the sickness was spreading onto the grass and ground below and that looked gross in Ze's opinion, not to mention that it was quickly killing the grass underneath and doing the whole infect+reanimate combo on the boiled ants.

Alright, maybe zombie ants were kinda funny. A screwed-up brand of humor.

"All in favour of going into that dark, scary, building instead of being in the dark, scary outside?" Seamus spoke up after everyone was still staring at the body, still squirming with worms.

Nova shuddered and made hacking sounds while Sly was still up in the tree, having avoided the conflict.

"I'll assume that's a yes."

* * *

Going into the building was vaguely unnerving.

Being _in_ the building was about the worst thing ever.

The air seemed as thick as half-solidified concrete in there, vines dangling down from the ceiling and tangling them up once in a while. It was darker than any night that they've seen (Ze _did_ realise that nights were pretty bright thanks to the swirling galaxies and the belt of off-white stars and splashes of colours that dotted the darkened sky) and multiple times he swore that hands were coming up from the ground and trying to drag him back into the underworld.

Fun times.

Nova sneezed at the thick cloud of dust in the air, but that only succeeded in shooting up more. Cracked glass littered the floor and tubes ranging from all sizes were attatched to the walls, some broken open with a tinted-blue fluid all around it while others had the hatch open. Wires criss-crossed the entire area, from a mess on the floor, dangling from the ceiling, or inside the tubes waiting for something to claim them.

Sly bounced happily through the corridor, smacking all the tubes all throughout. None of them seemed to have an android in them, so it was a relatively harmless activity, even though Seamus cringed and swore under his breath whenever Sly made a little too much noise for a stealth operation.

Ze just kept a close eye on the darkness. If this was a government base, that meant government goons - and not all of them were as lucky as Gassy and had a gas mask on them all the time.

No zombie jump scares _this_ time around.

Trails of the cobalt mystery liquid streaked across the ground and set off an eerie, ice-blue glow (because of course, glowing things mean either science or some kind of Abyss-type magic) that illuminated and exagerrated everyone's expressions. Nova looked angry at the universe, Sly looked like he was having a whale of a time, Seamus looked even more sarcastic than normal, and Ze was almost 100% sure that he looked incredibly uncomfortable. Well, more uncomfortable than normal.

It led off into the back of the room, which they were all following Sly into. Hopefully there'll be piles upon piles of hot dogs, some sleeping bags, or maybe a flushable toilet.

The thought of food made Ze's stomach growl. The food (if some wheat thrown into a pot with water in it could be considered '_food_') they prepared over the fire spilled over ages ago in the fight, and the effects of not eating some kind of dinner was starting to get to him. Notch, he hoped that Chilled was alright by himself. If previous encounters were anything to go by, he'd probably burned down their new house and the surrounding forest. That, or he'll just go to the (ruins of the) City of Machinima and check out Junkyard to see what eats he had in his house.

Junkyard, if that was even his name (Junk never really told them upfront and he had a nagging feeling that Chilled made up that name since he lived in a, you guessed it, junkyard) always had some type of food lying around. Good cook, too. The spaghetti Chilled brought home that one time from him was absolutely wonderful, even though he had to check for a variety of different poisons before eating it because all of the ingredients found in the spaghtti were currently extinct on the island. Still, that made him even hungrier.

He lives his normal life as if the Toxic never happened. He smells faintly of cooked food and spices. He _seems_ to be a normal human. He's normal except for the fact that normal is definitely a sign of something being horribly off nowadays.

The hallway in front of that stopped, only two tubes being at the end instead of something useful like they wanted. One of them was opened, seemingly harshly since the doors were already off the hinges, but the other one was just covered with vines.

"Look at what we have here..." Nova rubbed his hands together and placed them on top of the glass, pressing his face and smooshing his nose against it.

Seamus tilted his head to the side, examining the intact one. "Still shining inside. Think there's something inside?"

"Some_one_," Sly corrected, looking the tube up and down, "Androids are people too!"

"Yeah," the shark hybrid rolled his eyes and snorted, "People assembled together from metal scraps they get from mines and have a computer for a brain."

Ze didn't add in anything, instead looking closer at the tube.

Above it, a nameplate stood against the test of nature, an engraved letter/number combo on top. Sly paused in front of it before swiftly leaping on top, fiddling around with what looked like some kind of opening mechanism and keypad before Nova shouted for him to, to quote him, "Get the fuck _off_ before you accidentally set off a _nuke_ or some shit!".

Ze eyed the engraving. Probably the serial code for the android inside - if there was an android inside.

ALEKS - wait no, 4L3KS

Well that was confus-

The sound of air escaping out of an enclosed area snapped him out of his thought, the hatch for the tube swinging out and hitting Nova. The liquid fell onto the floor in front of them, unceremoniously splashing both Ze and Seamus and coating them with a blue glow. Sly hung upside-down from the top of the tube, peering into the android's closed eyes and looked cautiously at the wires that still hung off his frame.

All the wires made a clicking sound and detatched from the android, and when Sly finally dropped down onto the floor to give the rest of them a better view, Ze was pretty surprised at what he saw.

Half the prosthetic skin on it's face and all of the skin on the left arm was torn off, revealing the metal and wires underneath. Blue pieces of metal dotted the silver and two horn-antennae-things stuck out where his ears were suppose to be, probably transmitters. The code YL-4L3KS-HD was engraved onto one of the 'bones' and the same blue liquid that was currently soaking Ze's red sweater was pulsing through some wires like blood through veins.

It was a he, although his brown hair was pretty long. His skin was pale and he had the start of a spiraling, colourful tattoo on his left shoulder, but whatever design that was inked, or built, into his left arm were long gone by now. He wore a black sweater except for the bright red letters "HD" as if making a statement, and a pair of not grimy and dirty jeans.

He slowly opened his eyes (which were a uniform and drab brown) and surveyed the area, the eye implants probably taking in all of the information.

"Uhm." Sly smiled awkwardly and shuffled backwards, "My name's Sly, what's yours?"

The android opened his mouth and started screaming.


End file.
